Spain
NGO criticises local call for pardon in racist attack case
Two NGOs working in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia
have criticised the El Ejido town council plenum for demanding
a pardon for two men who kidnapped and beat three Maghreb country
nationals in December 1997, two of whom they suspected of a robbery.
Even more worrying, is that an appeal for a pardon was signed
by a very high proportion of the inhabitants of El Ejido (around
50,000 out of 60,000 who are in the municipal census). El Ejido
was the town in which a racist mob unleashed a wave of attacks
on Maghreb country nationals, their homes and businesses in February
2000 (see Statewatch bulletin vols 10 nos. 1 & 2). Also:
El País 21.5.2004.

Statement by Andalucía Acoge and Almería
Acoge

Andalucía Acoge and Almería Acoge express their
indignation for the backing that the plenum of the El Ejido town
council is offering to the two attackers of three Maghreb country
nationals, asking for them to be pardoned. The Supreme Court
recently confirmed their 15-year sentence [note: in fact 13 years,
six and a half for each defendant] for kidnapping and beating
the three migrants with baseball bats.

Through this political decision, the town council is legitimating
acts with racist components and promoting the appearance of more
actions of this nature. In this way, the local corporation worsens
the existing social fracture, instead of promoting coexistence
and the closening of relations between all its citizens.

Both organisations consider it inadmissible that a public
administration should support racist and anti-democratic behaviour.
They consider that El Ejido town council should protect the interests
of its entire citizenry, regardless of its origins and legal
status. Andalucía Acoge and Almería Acoge call
on the executive branches of the PSOE and PP to express their
disagreement with the initiative by the El Ejido town council
plenum, obliging both groups in the town council to withdraw
the request. (19.5.2004).

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